gone

parting is a real bitch. in whatever form. a fight, a break up, divorce, divergence.

but death. it's quite different from estrangement. its irreversibility leaves you with a helplessness. a chilling silence. one minute life is burping out beeps and peaks and troughs on the ecg graph. then death steps in, armed with its horrifyingly constant straight line, a loud sustained note that settles itself into a permanent background noise in your head. the resident residual.

you cannot tell the world about somebody who's gone. you cannot describe to the world your loss. you live in denial, in fury, in resentment, you look with pity upon those whose lives he didn't touch. you want to snarl at those who say that it will fade and you will forget--you don't want to forget. in fact, forgetting is your biggest fear. you are haunted by thoughts of waking up one day and not being able to remember what he sounded like. now that he's gone you hold him closer, like a child clutching at a toy in fear of having it snatched away.

fucking intangible memories. 

revulsion

If honesty doesn't pay, what does?

The official website

After a lot of plumbing, The Tap is up and running here:

http://www.thetap.in

Woohoo!

a bit of conversation

How much time did it take to make an egg sandwich? I shifted in my seat. It looked like it was going to rain. I had about four hours, and though I knew I would make it well in time, I was getting restless. Outside the kadai, a white dog settled down comfortably. Apparently, this was the same dog that had chased him a few months back. Didn't look capable of hurting a fly though, I thought to myself. Did I remember to pack my towel? I wondered if it had dried. This chap seemed rather nice. He was making conversation, and I tried to listen. I don't remember much of what he said - I think we just discussed various dog-chasing incidents. I'm gonna be late, I whined, half to myself. Relax, he said to me, not for the first time. I blushed, embarrassed, not realising that I was being so obviously fidgety and absent. And then—

"Do you know what Zen means?"

"Huh?" I sat up, suddenly hearing him clearly.

"Do you know what Zen means?"

Of course I knew. I had devoured books on the topic. I had read extensively about the philosophy — I had sat under trees discussing it with friends, I had spent late college nights reading about it. I had used words like nowness, awareness, self-realisation, consciousness and transcendence.

"Uh, Zen is you know... Zen", I said, gesturing emphatically (the same gesture one would use for 'world, universe' and the likes while singing school assembly songs). "I know the concept but am not sure what it exactly... "

"It just means being in the moment. In that place", he said simply. "So relax."

I was so taken aback. Was I that transparent, was it that obvious that I was incapable of relaxing? Of course, the comment was just a casual, offhand remark on his part, but he just put into words what I read so many times, knew well, and struggled to follow.

I'm always thinking about a hundred things at once. I'm regularly accused by friends of zoning in and out of conversations. I'm always multitasking, and I'm almost always in a rush. To have an almost-stranger observe and squarely point out what he might not have realised he pointed out was quite startling.

Some things you need to hear find their way to you most unexpectedly. He really hit the nail on the head.

madras dusk

the evening light of chennai was a dull, humid golden that spread itself slowly across the city's terraces. dusk came from the direction of the beach - both light and darkness seemed to birth in the horizon. after a good two hours on the street, young boys carrying cricket bats retreated indoors, chattering noisily and bidding their see-you-tomorrows.  young couples strolled on the marina, eating groundnuts; kites of various colours and shapes flew above them. trains, like veins, faithful and regular, carried everyone to their common destination - home.

routine treated everyone equitably. a family prepared for dinner with sun tv blaring in the background, a young girl in the neighbourhood lit a deepam, wearing jasmine in her hair, and, in a crowded dingy street, a man scored his stash for the week.

Playing in my head

Keith Jarret, and a sun rising from behind the basketball court. Keith Jarret, sitting alone in my room in the afternoon. Keith Jarret, at 3 am. Keith Jarret, without a thought in my head.

Keith Jarret. Foreground, background and everything else.

quote

Came across this brilliant sentence today:

"Contact is the appreciation of differences."

-Frederick 'Fritz' Peris

language

Having read this over and over again on TUIB's blog post, I thought I should just post it here:

"There's something fishy about describing people's feelings. You try hard to be accurate, but as soon as you start to define such and such a feeling, language lets you down. When we really speak the truth, words are insufficient. But they're important to us, nonetheless, because they are what connects us to thoughts other than those belonging to us."- Iris Murdoch

hello

I'd like to meet you, who do you see?
Introduce yourself to whichever of me is nearby.

                        

-CSNY

the tap

I think in pictures nowadays. After I started doing the comic strip (here), I feel as though I've found my tongue in another language - I'm on my own trip. For those of you who want to check out what I've been up to, you may head over to the fb page while the website is being constructed. 

:)

oh the relief

There's nothing like a face-to-face apology.

1996 Everest expedition: In memory

Looking up something online, I was lead by a chain of links to the Wikipedia article on the 1996 Everest Disaster, which I was introduced to in Anatoli Boukreev's The Climb about three years ago. This book was written as a response to Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air, which attributed a large part of the blame to Boukreev. The Climb shook me up and I never did feel like reading Jon K's account of the expedition, in spite of seeing it lying around in the library all the time. But today, after three years, suddenly my curiosity was revived and just as I was making a mental note to read all the books available on the expedition, I saw the date of the disaster:  11 May, 1996.

If this is just a random coincidence, it is extremely eerie.

May the eight rest in peace.

levelling

a routine is the most irritatingly sane thing in the world. almost as irritatingly sane as the invention of time itself. there is a way out, but the way out would make one insane. it seems to me that most of us are caught in a yossarian-like situation, especially those of us who've been working for a while now, and are discovering that settling down actually marks the beginning of The Unsettling.

but even duronto has two stops to revive itself. for me, on a daily basis, the same old is broken by little things - currently, it's watching the progress of a growing plant in office. some things, albeit routine, i look forward to, for the relief they bring, the relief of constancy and the relief of paintings.

and then again, travel provides the breaks. the western ghats make me happy. and meeting new people exhilarates when connections are formed. conversations with people i barely know suddenly become heart-warming, lighting-smile-in-fond-remembrance-just-before-sleep somethings i hold on to for a long time.

the want for change starts fading away, and i find myself embracing straight lines, even if temporarily. the search for the spontaneous and the insane transforms into a period of easy acceptance of the more subtle and sane, which lasts longer each time.

once

There was hardly any movement - just the occasional stray breeze that lightly touched some strands of dry grass. Only open sky and open fields were. In between the two we sat, insignificant in the vast state of non-motion. The silence and the stillness painted our memories in careful detail; hours and days dismissed time.

But in the real world everything moves. Time moves, and so do we, succumbing to the movement, like clockworks in this mindless, inescapable routine.  And not just once have I had this sneaking feeling that we might never have time again to create memories as beautifully clear, crisp and vivid as those. Today's memories are coated in a layer or two of blur.

Ask me about yesterday, and I could describe to you the colour of the grass in different months, what it smelled like when it was damp, and the sound of the whirring dragonflies. I could tell you about the feel of the mud in between my toes...but then that you must feel yourself. 

I wish I could take you there.

But I don't know if I could stop a second time.

grumble

I've realised that much as I love Hyderabad for the comforting familiarity of home it offers to me, it is a musically (and, in most cases, culturally) dormant city. Having spent over a year here now, I am surprised that there is hardly anything happening on the arts and culture scene, compared to Bangalore and Chennai. If you're not a party/clubbing/movie person and are a funk/rock/jazz lover, Hyderabad has little to offer.

Sometimes I wonder if it's a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side case.

But I do sorely, sorely miss the music.

into the great wide open

Having spent four years anchored under the canopy of friends, freedom and the steady backdrop of home, I think all of us were a little unsure of our place in the world post-college. It wasn't so much as finding jobs or courses as it was about feeling uprooted and walking around trying to fix ourselves in new soil. It fascinates me that what seemed like such a large and complex world was hardly a pixel compared to what we see stepping out, and it makes me sad to think that all of us will never be in the same place at the same time and under the same circumstances again.

I remember vividly conversations that I now know all ten thousand of us had at some point - conversations about love and relationships, about drawing lines and erasing some, about searching, finding and losing. I remember conversations about being and meaning, about purpose and ambition, about giving and owing, and about defining and belonging - when belonging was the last thing we had to worry about.

happy new year, everybody!

the answer

Its all so simple really. Once u stop thinking of life as something irrational that needs rationalizing. Everything makes sense. But doesn't make sense if you try to figure it out. But why would you want to figure it out if it already made sense. No?

Catch-22.

the birthday post - 23

I thought this birthday I wouldn't write one and nobody would miss it but then people asked me where the traditional mail is and orey excited I became!
So here it is.

The past year I have seen more of the computer screen than I have in the previous ones.
The past year has seen so much more love - it just keeps growing exponentially.
Aforementioned year has also seen me obtain driving license! Woohoo!
I still am a magnet for mallus.

I have made new new friends.
Old ones seem to renew themselves everyday.
I've gotten over old fears.
New ones have taken their place.

I've travelled lots! Orey.
Orey is the word of the year - it has taken over the whatay kingdom.

The Western Ghats. Period.
I used to be good at sketching.
Now I only draw stick figures.
I wish I had the same ability to simplify in thought.

IwantogotoAfrica Icantwait.
I love skirts.
I love kurtas.
I love shirts.
I love stoles.

Buy of the year: pink pajamas. Feel like a thirteen year old.
Some teenager called me 'didi' recently and I suddenly felt very old.

Piano has arrived in the life and I am inexplicably happy about that.
The trick is to find the constant to find permanent comfort.
Not look at something bound to change and then whine (though you may whiskey..).

People care.
But our lives are governed by immediate circumstances.
So what about sunrise and what about rain?
The man will never die.

I dislike people who eavesdrop.
It's easy to apologise.
You don't notice the love that's in front of you because you're too busy looking over your shoulder.

Editing is making me learn english and forget some.
I can't chop an onion without chopping a finger.

I love exploring cities.
Junk-jewellery-window-shopping is soul-satisfying.
Too many hyphens, too many hyphens.

I sometimes don't listen to songs that I know will make me feel.
But only there does lie manna.

I love birds' feet - yellow of mynas and pink of pigeons.
I love donkeys' eyes.
I'm terrified of anything below ground - caves, tunnels, even metros sometimes.

I love bookshops in airports.

I love in-flight magazines.

I get incredibly awkward when people ask me to read aloud my poems.
They're meant to be read, not listened to!
Shy comes.

Every birthday, I am awed, thrilled and touched by the number of people who call.
This post gets shorter by the year.
I feel younger.

Orey.

commons

You only had to jump across an arm's length to get into the terrace of the neighbouring house. But nobody ever tried. Windows faced windows in dangerous proximity, eliminating the slightest chance for privacy. One could hear low murmurs behind drawn curtains, and the mixed smells of everyday cooking drifted about on its morning rounds.

Inside the building, the staircase was narrow and almost always dark, the steps steep. The yellow bulb had long gone and nobody had bothered to replace it. Brownie, tommy, rocky, doggie - they all had different names for him- used to lay his heavy brown body across the third and fourth steps, curl up and sleep contentedly, oblivious to the many visitors who always almost stepped on him. He never budged.

Everyone came out to their terraces in the evening. Kids played cricket, stopping only after invoking the wrath of the neighbourhood aunties who threatened not to return the ball from their compounds the next time. Men smoked intermittently, and so did two black-eyed young girls; in the corner lay a pile of absently strewn stubs and a couple of old bottles. The starlit night sky watched over couples, throwing their long black shadows into a rough denial of embarrassment.

Afternoons were silent with clothes drying mutely on the washing line, save the lone caw-caw of the hungry crow.